tennis slash - The Unlucky Roger Federer (4)
Title: The Unlucky Roger Federer (4)
Author: Kris S.
Fandom: Tennis RPS
Pairing: Roger Federer/Andy Roddick
Disclaimer: This definitely did not happen.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: AU. What if Roger Federer wasn't the great champion? What if his career was plagued by injuries, bad luck and constantly losing to a certain American?
Author's Note: Thank you all for reading. Sorry for the delay - computer issues.
Part 4
The professional relationship between Roger and Mirka stayed intact through the summer hard court season. Mirka would conduct business from either Switzerland or New York City while Roger trained or played tournaments elsewhere. They were hardly even in the same place, communication through phone, email, text a necessity.
It wasn't until the US Open that they were both in the same place. By then, they had settled into a comfortable middle ground. She continued to sit in her usual place in the friends and family area during his matches. Very few people, certainly none of the commentators, were aware they weren't even a couple.
Roger had won two tight sets against Fabrice Santoro in his second round match and was in a fight in the third set. They were in a rally and Fabrice hit a shot with a sharp angle. He went chasing after the ball, barely managing to get a lob. He tried to stop his momentum from carrying him into the stands but he landed his left foot wrong.
At first he thought he could walk it off and be fine in a few minutes. When he tried, pain shot up the back of his leg and forced him to the ground, clutching his calf.
It turned out to be a Grade 2 calf strain, meaning there was a partial tear of the muscle fibers. A full recovery could take between five and eight weeks. Mirka encouraged him to stay in New York City due to the higher quality doctors available.
Even with withdrawing from the US Open, he had qualified for his first Masters Cup. When he was still thinking optimistically about the length of the recovery, that seemed a viable goal. Five weeks of rehabilitation would carry it into mid-October before picking up a racket. If he'd lost all his matches there, it was still an honor to be one of the best eight players in the world.
Of course that didn't happen. Of course there was a setback. By the time mid-October came along, he decided to do the sensible thing and withdraw. Mirka was angry at his timing, as she had been in the process of negotiating times for the photo shoots with the final eight. Of course conveniently telling these people that rehab was ahead of schedule, that of course he'd be in shape, everyone would forget the horrific sight of him clutching his leg weeks earlier.
When he was finally given clearance, Roger was immediately on the court. The sessions weren't immediately long, as he now had a timeline of mid-January instead of mid-November. Soon, his endurance improved and he'd go for longer runs through Central Park. This became a morning ritual.
Roger tried not to follow the Masters series and Masters Cup events that ended that year. He had heard that his withdraw had been the first of several from the Masters Cup and promoters were quite upset.
That still didn't prepare him to see Andy Roddick outside the apartment the morning of the first day of the Masters Cup. He had just done his morning run and would have said it was a mirage if he wasn't aware the temperature was in the fifties and it about to downpour.
"Hmm, you don't look injured," Andy observed, tilting his head.
"Neither do you," Roger retorted. "Shouldn't you be in Shanghai?"
Andy held his long umbrella as a cane and tilted forward slightly. "The old man's back won't allow it."
"Okay then. Why are you in New York?"
"Charity. My brother John was getting annoyed by my lounging around his place so he signed me up for several events out here. One of them is an auction where the winner gets a dinner with me." Andy rolled his eyes. "Apparently once I got single, he decided to sign up as my pimp."
"You don't exactly have trouble getting women."
"Yeah," Andy muttered. He stared down at the ground when he asked, "Wanna grab breakfast?"
Roger widened his eyes, not sure he heard correctly. Andy's eyes were looking anywhere but at him so he's not noticing the shock. It allowed Roger to recover to joke, "Is the price lower for breakfast than dinner?"
"The price? What? Oh, the auction. Yeah, it's a discount rate. I'm cutting John out of his ten percent."
* * * * *
The meal felt weird. Roger had never dealt with Andy outside of tennis. Whether it was a promotional shoot, charity event, the same hotel, run-ins in the locker room, or the practice court, it was generally about tennis.
First of all, Andy was difficult to keep still. Roger likened it to when he'd babysat his cousin years ago. Eyes darting around. Fiddling with the pepper shaker. Arranging the utensils. After realizing Roger was watching him do this, he apologized, joking about possible ADD.
It turned out the eyes darting around, however, was for a very real reason. "They have a camera phone they're trying to hide," Andy muttered, tilting his head toward a table at the opposite end of the restaurant. "I used to love this," he sighed, waving his hand around. "It's just gotten so tiring trying to be 'on'. Every reporter wants that priceless one-liner. Those two girls will giggle in the corner until one gets up the nerve to approach us and say," in a low, though high-pitched voice, "'Ohmygawd. I totally can't believe it's you!'" He slumped back in the chair. "If I'm lucky, they want an autograph or a photo taken and that's all. But there are those that want a play-by-play of matches, what was I thinking when I broke up with whomever the tabloids spotted me with last week, or maybe trying to get a date themselves."
"I am so sorry," Roger said sarcastically. "It must be so tiring to be Andy Roddick. If you had lost just a little bit more, you wouldn't have all these problems."
"I like being a tennis player. Great players suddenly talk to you as if you're one of their peers." Even as a mere Grand Slam finalist, Roger could agree with that one. "At some point after winning the US Open, I became a celebrity. People who couldn't even tell how to read a score suddenly wanted to know every little detail of my personal life. It's weird."
"There's enough women to cushion the pain."
There was that distant look again, a fleeting moment before masking it with a smirk that didn't seem real. "Yeah, but the back problem remains so they're not quite that magical."
Roger laughed along because that was what the sentence implied, but he couldn't help but wonder. "Why did you really seek me out?"
Andy appeared to seriously consider an answer, a truthful answer. Unfortunately, the two girls giggling in the corner finally got up the courage. Once they started in, that drew in other people and the conversation part of the meal was over.
When the crowd finally died down, Andy looked at Roger, it clear that the last question still needed an answer. "There's a rumor that you and Mirka are no longer together. I was in town but I'm not sure what I expected when he found out where you were staying." Andy stood up, dropping a few bills on the table. "It was a dumb idea. He shouldn't have talked me into this. Have a nice day."
There were questions racing through his head and there was no way he could take the chance of waiting for another New York encounter. He paid the rest of the bill, then rushed out of the restaurant. He didn't want to make a scene, so he was relieved that Andy was walking at regular speed. So he rushed up to him, then pulled him away from the street, into a doorway for an abandoned building.
"What were you talking about? What were you supposed to do?" A small doorway area had them uncomfortably close to each other.
Andy looked toward the street. Averting direct eye contact even when they were pinned in this doorway. "It's not what you think." A blush crept up the back of Andy's neck, which made Roger wonder exactly what he'd been supposed to think. "My former coach, er Brad Gilbert," like nobody in the tennis world knew that, "was getting tired of being a commentator and is getting that itch to coach again. He thought you might be interested in his services. A fresh start, if you will."
Roger wasn't sure how well he'd fit with the boisterous coach but it was worth at least listening to the pitch. What he really wanted to know was how Brad had turned Andy Roddick into a champion and what had caused the break-up a year ago. "Sure, why not."
Part 5